Stalin’s bureaucracy waged a campaign of hate against artists who defied their narrow doctrine of ‘Socialist Realism’. Dmitri Shostakovich’s ‘Anti-formalist Rayok’ lambasts these cultural crimes, and defends the spirit of cultural freedom unleashed by the October Revolution.

Next month, ballots open for the general secretary election in Unison, Britain’s largest trade union. Scandalously, the so-called ‘Communist’ Party of Britain is supporting right-wing incumbent and arch-bureaucrat Christina McAnea against left candidate Andrea Egan.

After WWII, the Soviet bureaucracy abolished capitalism and set up Stalinist regimes across Eastern Europe. In Yugoslavia, Tito broke from Moscow while maintaining a planned economy. During intense debates within the Fourth International, Ted Grant masterfully analysed these processes.